Erin Gruwell

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"I'm not a hero; I simply did what I had to do, because it was the right thing to do," said Miep Gies when she was a guest speaker in room 203 for Erin Gruwell's class. This one sentence became their class saying and what they lived by in the classroom. My hero is a teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School and was assigned a group of one hundred fifty freshman who were the rejects from other teachers. Erin Gruwell gave them hope and strength to go on to bigger and better things. They all graduated high school and published a book called the Freedom Writers which became a movie in 2007 starring Hilary Swank. Through her dedication and devotion to her students, Erin taught peace and tolerance and restored hope to those who lost it.

Erin Gruwell was born on August 15, 1969 in California. She has her Masters Degree and teaching credentials from California State University, Long Beach. She went on to be a student teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School for one year but was given the lowest performing students. Erin taught about the Holocaust and took her students to see Schindler's List and paid for guest speakers to come. She came back the next year as a teacher. That year she taught about tolerance and had the students read books written by teenagers during war. These books came from her own pocket money. This shows that she really wanted her students to succeed.

Erin Gruwell ( ())

Erin worked two extra jobs while teaching room 203 to help them in any way she could. These students had experience violence, drugs, and alcohol first hand. During the year they read books like The Diary of a Young Girl, Zlata's Diary, and Night. The students were so inspired that they wrote letters to Miep Gies, the women who hid Ann Frank and her family. She came and spoke to them along with other Holocaust survivors. After reading these books, Erin encouraged them to keep a diary about what was going on in their lives.

During her students four years of high school, Erin made it her mission to teach lessons that spoke to their experiences. She would start class with an activity that made the students feel like they were teaching the class because they were coming up with the ideas. During their junior year, they learned about the Freedom Riders, the civil rights activist who rode buses around the country that were integrated. This inspired Erin's class to adopt the name Freedom Writers.

The very next year, room 203 was awarded the Spirit of Anne Frank Award for their ongoing fight to battle discrimination and racism. They also edited their very own journals into one big book called the Freedom Writers - How a Teacher and 150 Teens used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. Their book went onto being a New York Times bestseller. All 150 freedom writers graduated in 1998 and many went on to college. Erin traded her teaching job for a job at California State University, Long Beach. She became a teacher in residence in the college of education. Her goal was to help as many students as possible and teach them to become future educators. A couple of years later, Erin with the help of the freedom writers developed the Freedom Writers Foundation, a nonprofit organization that was devoted to repeating the success of the Freedom Writers.

A hero is someone who does something because it is the right thing to do. Everyone expected Erin to quit on her first day but she stayed devoted to her students. Now they are teachers, doctors, and lawyers among other things. The Freedom Writers travel all around the world to prisons and reform schools teaching about tolerance and peace, just as Erin did for them. These students, once written off as unteachable, showed everyone that they could do it. Erin is a hero because she never gave up on them and continues to help kids get better educations everyday.